FPB Blog

Grant & Contract Accounting (GCA) is happy to announce that Search by eGC1 is now available in Award Portal! Campus users have long used eGC1 (SAGE Application Number) to search for grants but, since Workday go-live, have been unable to do so. The new search function is now even easier as it auto-populates the mandatory letter and formats the data entered so users are more likely to get the results they’re looking for.

UW Finance Cube Released:

The Reporting & Analytics team (R&A) and Finance DATAGroup have released the new UW Finance Cube. This advancement connects users to Workday data, offering greater flexibility than traditional reports. The cube provides a comprehensive view of UW Finances for Fiscal Year 2024, including revenue, expenses, and beginning balances. Users can analyze transactions at various levels using dimensions like Ledger Account, Cost Center, Fund, Function, and more.

Post Award Grant Administration Stabilization Update

• GCA’s Award Setup backlog continues on a downward trend and is now under 800 items, an 12% decrease in the last two weeks and a 48% decrease since the start of the calendar year.

Dear UW community,

Since stepping into the position of Senior Vice President and CFO in January after the merger of UW Finance and the Office of Planning & Budgeting, our new team continues to learn, respond to emergent issues, and build capacity to achieve the benefits of Workday Finance. At this stage, I want to convey several important messages to our community, especially faculty and staff:

New Workday Dashboard for Shared Environment

• We're pleased to announce the launch of the Shared Environment Dashboard, now accessible within Workday.

Financial Accounting Stabilization Update

• Beginning balance reconciliation, or the transfer of certain financial balances from multiple legacy systems to Workday with an increased level of detail, is a high priority item for the central office teams involved in this work. Three hour long daily working sessions to complete the reconciliation are scheduled throughout the latter part of March with the goal of completing this critical to fiscal year close work by the end of April.

Post Award Grant Administration Stabilization Update

• The Award Setup backlog has been trending down for several weeks and has declined 41% since early January. In response to the high volume of Award Setup Requests (ASRs), training efforts have been focused on creating capacity for experienced team members who can review and process ASRs.
• Three FTE have been trained on the final federal report process. Two additional FTE will be hired later this month for a total of 12 FTE.

Financial Accounting Stabilization Update

• Foundation Data Model (FDM) (aka “chart of accounts”) modification request backlog, peaking at approximately 250 requests, each containing multiple, often complex requests has been fully remediated as of late February.

Procurement Stabilization Update

Significant progress has been made in stabilizing Workday within procurement. Since go-live the University of Washington – inclusive of the medical centers -- has paid over $1.9 billion in goods and services. Our backlog is down to 2% and we have successfully paid 98% of our invoices due. We continue to focus efforts on system stability and improving user satisfaction.

Procurement Stabilization Update

Through Procurement Services’ oversight in managing the Workday Location Customer Account Number (“LCAN”), a crucial data element determining delivery locations for the University, the efficiency of transmitting purchase orders from Workday to our suppliers has vastly improved. From a peak of 1,083 order failures on August 2, 2023, we have seen a remarkable reduction, with just 23 failures reported as of March 9 of this year. This marks an impressive 98% decrease in the rate of purchase order failures.